Posted
by
Zonkon Thursday December 14, 2006 @06:25PM
from the keep-your-hand-out-of-the-till dept.

RamblingMan writes "According to the BBC, the American Union of Concerned Scientists has put out a statement about the misrepresentation of date and a list of such interference by the U.S. government in scientific research. Besides the usual slew of Nobel Laureate signatories, they provide a number of examples besides the well-known example of the EPA's Global Warming Report." From the BBC article: "'It's very difficult to make good public policy without good science, and it's even harder to make good public policy with bad science,' said Dr Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. 'In the last several years, we've seen an increase in both the misuse of science and I would say an increase of bad science in a number of very important issues; for example, in global climate change, international peace and security, and water resources.'"

According to the BBC, the American Union of Concerned Scientists has put out a statement about the misrepresentation of date and a list of such interference by the U.S. government in scientific research.

What do you expect from a man who can't even pronounce "Nuclear" properly? Honestly?

Don't pretend like it just started now...People have been twisting science to meet political/economic ends for as long as there has been science. Admittedly, the Shrub administration is hugely anti-intellectual, but that just means that their bad science is more obvious.

Frankly as long as there is money/power at stake where scientific findings are concerned, there will be biased, skewed science. Scientists are no less susceptible to bribes and threats, and no less prone to intellectual whoredom than regular people.

Erm... Actually, no. In general scientists are far less prone to intellectual whoredom than regular people.

I think if you look into this issue more closely you'll find that the issue is not corruption of scientists, but misuse and misrepresentation of their findings.

No scientist who acts as you imply could long remain employed as a scientist. The moment he (or she) published his (or her) findings that would be pretty much the end of it. Every published scientific study of any wide interest is peer-reviewed, scrutinized, and confirmed or refuted by many other scientists. Whenever a scientist is found to be massaging data he gets peer-reviewed into oblivion and his reputation is forever screwed. These are known in the business as "flaps" and you can find many examples of them.

Just on the practical level, consider how scientists operate in the real world. Scientists rarely work alone, and rarely are they the only individual looking into a class of phenomena. So frankly, one lone scientist with an agenda in a research group couldn't have much of an effect. You'd have to get a whole team of rogue scientists -- not an easy thing to do since Doctor Evil recruited them all to his research team back in the 60's.

In science there are few, if any, Karl Rove's. However, in politics there are plenty of reptiles anxious to suppress, distort, downplay, and misrepresent scientific findings. So this is what you get: Lackeys inserted at NASA to curtail serious climate research; findings reports edited and suppressed by the corporations that fund the research.

Are you kidding me? It varies field by field, and some fields are much more
susceptible to what the GP is describing. Political, medical, language science,
economics, and history (just to name a few) are ones obviously influenced
by all kinds of cultural and political biases. And don't tell me that these are not
"real" sciences, for in each of these fields one can apply the scientific method.
The only bogus science today, I think, is psychology. (Flame away, that's not my
point.)

Ok, I will tell you that they are "humanities" or "social science", sure science can be used on them (mainly statistical math such as epedimiology studies) but there tends to be alot of speculation about what the stats mean with no few tests available to differentiate between speculations (theories), especially in areas like history and politics.

The problem is not science as such, the scientific method is the best thing we have for understanding th

The most commonly perverted science is chemistry. Did you know the lead (the element lead (Pb)) industry buried data relating to lead poisoning for almost half a century, while lobbying to have lead added to gasoline as an unnecessary additive? How about Tobacco companies, and "Smoking doesn't cause cancer"? Chemical companies defending themselves against lawsuits over their pollution by employing scientists who are willing to go on the stand and say that there is no possible link between dumping compounds containing large amounts of covalent chlorine into the environment and the statistically unlikely upswing of cancer in the area?

There are huge amounts of dishonest shilling in every branch of science where there is money at stake. That's just the way of the world.

You overestimate the integrity of scientists and the degree of peer-review. Still, the basic point is sound, if somewhat over-stated.

It needs to be remembered that government isn't the only, or the most flagrant, abuser of scientific research. Commercial firms are, if anything, worse (on the average).

Also, there's a culture against the reporting of negative findings. These are just as important as positive findings, but they don't tend to qualify for publication OR for alternate forms of public exposure and preservation.

Things aren't very rosy. Computer science is, perhaps, one of the purest forms of science around. This is partially because of it's strong footing in mathematics, but even more strongly because it's easy and cheap to check out revealed algorithms and procedures. The GPL is one solid foundation here. It ensures the publication of significant results. (Negative results are still not recorded or revealed.) I tend to think of the GPL as the scientific ethos solidified into a legal structure.

I don't think your familiar with pharmaceutical studies. The drug companies pay for "independent" academic research and pretty much get the results they want. This is why congress and the FDA have had to back-track and issue warning on drugs already declared "safe". We just got another this week. The corruption can be hard to find on the surface. When prozac was studied for teen saftey the kids who suffered the worst side effects during "Activation" had to drop out of the study they weren't even counted in end results. A lot of scientists and universities aren't independent at all. Corporate money is behind a lot of "research" these days and its easy to see a lot of "research" has been created just to serve as marketing - it's a facade. The academicians, politicians and corporations often change hats. The university researcher who plays nice gets the corporate or political appointment. Bad science is everywhere. They hardly try to even hide it anymore.

That may be true but it was taken to new (heights/depths) by the current administration.

When the current administration came into power and were looking for a executive to head the CDC they replaced the Nobel laureate whom was the current director. And the interview where he was removed consisted of two questions. (Second hand from a former director at Center for Disease Control)

1) Are you a republican
2) Did you vote for this president.

That explains just about everything you need to know about our current administration folks. That is the same treatment the military and other branches of government received. It helped push the administrations policies, but the person who was selected was completely incompetent. (Think FEMA) But the only criteria the administration cared about was loyalty. This absolutely destroyed the CDC. New policies included bureaucratic overview of what was considered publishable and bureaucrats deciding certain studies were flawed despite no experience in the field.

Essentially the scientists were told what results they were required to give and had to conduct studies to prove them. Pretty much all of the top scientists fled so they could actually continue doing science. The CDC parking lot is almost deserted these days. And this is one of the most important scientific establishments in the nation. (The rest of the National institute of health received similar "adjustments")

Scientists are no less susceptible to bribes and threats, and no less prone to intellectual whoredom than regular people. should start with "modern publically/govt. funded scientists". Modern "science", since just before WWII (if you have to put a threshold somewhere) was too dependant on government grants, which (surprize!) were funnelled to things having military/national pride/ national "happiness" applications (in that order).Before that time the great minds who called themselves "scientists" were most

Exactly. Bush rushed the US into a useless war for fictitious reasons. Carter authorized the funding of a genocidal war against the people of East Timor. Neither of these actions had anything to do with their pronunciation of nuclear...

However, one wonders if their disregard for linguistic aesthetics implies a corollary disregard for truth and beauty.

science goes wherever the government sees a critical priority, unfortunately nowadays many governments are controlled by money interests, this is what's really interfering in the relationship between science/politics.

Funding certain areas of scientific research instead of others is one thing; actively suppressing or ignoring the results of said research is entirely another. The executive branch has some control over what gets researched, and I'm basically OK with that; what I'm not OK with is the government's control of the results.

The executive branch has some control over what gets researched, and I'm basically OK with that;

I would be if it was done fairly, or at least rationally. Refusing to fund a US$30B fusion reactor because the money isn't available is understandable, refusing to permit a prominent US engineer to participate on an international standards committee because he made a donation to a political party other than the one currently occupying the White House is not. Yet this is just what the current administration is doing [ppionline.org].

I still can't believe the lack of knowledge on here (oops..wait this IS Slashdot..home of the ignorant and anonymous) about how the US Government works. The executive branch has little control over what gets researched. The LEGISLATIVE branch writes and funds ALL the Bills that provide the funds for Government research, if they don't like it they won't fund it (aka "it died in committie"). The "fourth branch" aka The Agencies have a great deal of control over what they PROPOSE to Congress to get funding in the budget requests they submit each year that get turned into Bills that are then funded (Authorization and Appropriations process). It is true the Exec Branch gets to name the heads of the Agencies but Congress confirms them and the long-term civil servants at the mid-levels really run the Agencies. Yes, the President also sends a "Budget" to Congress but that really has no bearing on what gets passed and most of the time the numbers are not real. Oh, and don't forget all the "pork" your Senator or Representative slips into the Bills. Having been the recipient of some "pork" when I was at NASA so I can tell you how the pig gets born, raised, slaughtered and sent to market.

I refer you to this review [blogspot.com] of one of the more dishonest scientific episodes in recent memory, in which Patrick Michaels quite deliberately distorted Hansen's 1998 climate predictions (which, ten years later, were actually quite good). If I was Hansen I'd be pissed, too.

Care to provide any links that demonstrate with any shred of integrity why Dr. Hansen's research is crappy? And please don't waste my time with Junk Science or any other previously debunked sites.

Union of Concerned Scientists is a well known ultra liberal bunch of left wing scientists. Your Nobel lauretes are not that impressive, when Mohammed El-Baradi and IAEA are named as a Laureate something is wrong. The scientists are all from liberal bastions like Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Salk Institute, etc. I also see NO indications of there ever being political interference with Science before 2002 in your reference site. That's VERY sneaky as the Clintons were not really kind to science either cutting man

I post a rather diplomatic response and you come back all snotty and condescending.When writing my MS thesis, I was precise and correct and detailed. When posting on./, and having a proposal and some other work due the same day, sometimes I devote less time and energy.

Besides, in my post I was precise and correct; I stand by my characterization of the exec. branch having "some control" over funding, for reasons already mentioned. But I concede I didn't even need to single out the exec. branch; you win th

"According to the BBC, the American Union of Concerned Scientists has put out a statement about the misrepresentation of date and a list of such interference by the U.S. government in scientific research.

Even when the press puts such statements up for rebuttal to our president, he goes around the question, dodging it and then says "...we have a lot of work to do for the American people..."

Science has been a contentious subject throughout history. Whereas in the past science was misused and constrained by the church, today it has been co-opted by politics. Scientific progress has continued nevertheless. I believe that scientists will continue to discover new and exciting things about the physical world regardless of the representation or supression of their discoveries. This is especially true when viewed from a global perspective.

That's an interesting point. In the second half of the last century, the US has invested passively in science, and done very well from it. A lot of scientist have moved to the US, attracted by a big research budget. I've thought about it. But as political interference increases, we'll start moving somewhere else instead - the science goes on. But what will be the effect for the United States?

Please don't confuse the practice of science with the use of scientists' results. Science itself isn't contentious--it's pretty straightforward from the layman's standpoint at least (money and dorky-looking people go in; data eventually comes out). How people INTERPRET and USE the science that we do is what's contentious.

Whereas in the past science was misused and constrained by the church, today it has been co-opted by politics.

Note that when the church was constraining science was when the church was at its most powerful politically, thus making it pretty much the same as being co-opted by politics.

It is the nature of politics -- whether the political power is exercised by democratic governments or theocratic religious institutions -- to view everything as a tool through which to pursue the politician's objectives. Rarely if ever are things like science used to define the objective. The result is that if the science says something that goes against the political objective, then it is the science that must change.

While you're right to observe that science goes on regardless, and scientific progress is made, that isn't the point. The point is that today, right now, there are decisions being made that could use the information provided by science to produce a better decision. Instead, the decision is being made first, and the science is either being ignored or twisted to support that decision. The result is beneficial for the politicians, and usually detrimental to everyone else.

If you ever needed a practical example of how facts should aid the definition of policy, rather than policy causing the redefinition of facts, simply look at Iraq. Is it yet obvious the difference between somebody's belief as to what the answer should be irrespective of facts vs the answer suggested by the real facts has profound consequences? It was the policy of the administration that the Iraqis would welcome us with roses, Democracy would flourish, and Iraq would become a shining example of hope in the Middle East. It was strongly suggested by the facts that nobody welcomes invaders, chaos would flourish particularly if there was no plan to prevent it, and Iraq would become a disaster. Today, as we struggle to come up with a plausible way of preventing the worst-case scenarios that the policy said were impossible, I think the dangers of ignoring the politicization of science are apparent.

It was the policy of the administration that the Iraqis would welcome us with roses, Democracy would flourish, and Iraq would become a shining example of hope in the Middle East.

Actually, for the record, that was simply the last in a long line of sales pitches that the administration put before the American People, and since it stuck they've continued to act as if it was the point all along.

It should be obvious by now (and frankly it was pretty obvious then) that they never really had any interest in this a

>I believe that scientists will continue to discover new and exciting things about the physical world

But those will no longer benefit the society where the scientists and we live.

Check Wikipedia for "Lysenko". He had genetic theories that fit the USSR's government's agenda, but which were also uterly bogus. Scientists who kept talking about data instead of toeing the Party line had their careers ruined. Then the government tried to apply his theories to agriculture.

What if the Church provided most of the funding for science, regulated science, etc.. Science would have never escaped the control of the church, it would have stagnated. Fortunatly, so much science was being done outside church institutions, and science continued and thrived.Now the government provides most of the funding for science, regulates science, etc. As long as science is controlled and funded by the political system, it must first and foremost serve the political goals of whatever the ruling party

While I certainly don't approve of the way the current administration treats scientific research, the article seems to imply that it is bad for all science. No doubt the administration has hindered progress in areas that clash with its politics, such as climate change. However, there are plenty of areas not so politically turbulent that operate without interference. There are probably even some areas of scientific research that have benefited from the Bush administration, petroleum geology for instance.

The Israelis and Palestinians hate one another -- what role does science play in that?

"Well, after looking under the microscope, we now see that they don't hate one another."

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for science!

Let me know when science can solve the problem of people hating one another for generations upon generations -- oh, and when they can go MMORPG cheater and dupe Taiwan so that China finally will shut up -- then I'll be impressed.

The Israelis and Palestinians hate one another -- what role does science play in that?

Science must do its part in designing efficient LSD / Psilocybin aerosol distribution drones for weekly fly-overs of the entire Middle East until everyone chills the fuck out. That's the role I envision.

The Israelis and Palestinians hate one another -- what role does science play in that?

Psychological experiments, including measurements of brain activity using NMRI gear, indicate that humans are more rationalizing than rational. I believe there's also been research which indicates deep-seated beliefs seldom undergo significant change after the age of thirty. This would suggest that any policy based on the assumption that local stability (without genocide) is likely in a scale less than decades is compl

Very nice reply, I personally wouldn't have been thinking in that direction but crop production and water management are two key issues in the middle east as well and science has a huge role to play there. It is interesting how many people think science is around to solve technical issues alone and ignore the impact it has had on our lives personally, emotionally, and geographically. Traveling from one end of the U.S. to the other and back again for Christmas has done a lot to keep my close with my family w

Scienciness gives us more consistent and reassuring results than that old-fashioned science. The old stuff is for pessimists and gloom-and-doomers. The optimists in this country will not let such negative attitudes hold back progress and growth.

Just like there is (or at least, there is supposed to be) a strict seperation between church and state, there should be the same strict seperation between science and state. OF COURSE scientists who work for the government are going to be pressured to come up with results that reinforce the policies of the ruling party - that is how politics work! Remove the politics from science, by making sure institutionally they are in no way connected.The only change that has been happening recently is that science is

Will politicians stop interfering with science when scientists stop interfering with politics?

Take for example, the pressure from scientists to implement the Kyoto protocol. A decision on whether or not to implement the Kyoto protocol is surely outside the domain of science, as it is a decision that must weight scientific data on the likely outcomes of global warming against non-scientific data on the economic effects of the Kyoto protocol. Do scientists have the advisors to balance the former against the

Because ideally scientists provide information for making decisions (military, financial, etc.). The same reason you check your weather before deciding to have a picknick.And the same reason you look at a label on the bottle before deciding whether to drink it... Instead of drinking something first, then deciding what it should say on the label ("joro spider toxin?")

They are "special" where their public intelligence duties are concerned.

The same as doctors are "special" in their duties of preserving human life (even though killing off certain patients would save our insurance companies money)

Cops are "special" in that they uphold the rule of the law and not the will of a dictator (the reason Clinton could not throw all the Republican voters in jail in this country).

Shouldn't the voters decide what the truth is?

No. Voting the Earth flat will not make it so. Evolution will not disapear no matter what people believe. It will not stop raining the moment you impeach your Local8 weatherman. Voters can make up their policy given the facts, but they should not make up the facts

Fundamentally science uses its own rules, logic, facts and deduction. Science is the only arm of the government that stands on its own merits rather than having to be forced upon us. For example science tells us the sun is very hot:) Regardless of who interprets it the fact remains the same. OTOH the financial arm of the government will say we have no money but if we were to have a separate group of accountants to view the same figures they would likely come up with a different conclusion. The latter is echoed throughout all governments. The only reason the government is so interested in science to begin with is that each scientific fact works for everyone in the same way and cannot be skewed, so it arises at the attitude "we are better to discover the fact then risk someone else find it first".

Back to the topic. Scientists are trusted to arrive at scientific conclusions, how can we trust the combustion engine but if they say the world is getting hotter in a bad way we should not? We should definitely challenge them by asking questions and seeking answers, but to discredit them for no reason is a very scary path to go down if you ask me.

So basically, you think scientists are "special" and should basically be above any kind of government regulation. Thats so typical. You want to make the rules for everyone else, but not be subject to the consequences of the will of the people.

That's right. Science is simply an extension and justification of popular opinion. Too many of these elitists seem to think it's about objective study of the nature our universe.

I think the government hasn't gone far enough. All scientists should be denied funding until they provide conclusive proof of the existence and location of the Garden of Eden, our common ancestors in Adam and Eve and that God is white and conservative. Funding any research until that is done should be an offense attracting the death penalty. By public burning at the stake.

While we're at it, how come meteorologists get off so lightly? There's an example of elitism right there. From now on weather forcasts should always be for perfect beach weather in coastal areas, perfect snow cover in the mountains, and just the right amount of rainfall for the farms. All year round.

So basically, you think scientists are "special" and should basically be above any kind of government regulation.

It's not only he who thinks so but society at large. This is called academic freedom. The rationale for its existence can be found it you see what happens when it does not exist, a prime example is "Lysenkoism", death toll: 30 million people in China alone.
Academic freedom doesn't mean scientists are completely unregulated, in fact, there are many ethical restrictions placed on them when conduc

Actually, the complaint is that politics is too separated from science. Politicians are ignoring real science and creating a falsified pseudoscience to replace it.

Science, at it's core, is about recognizing and organizing patterns in factual observations. Government, at it's core, should be about a lowest common denominator - things that the vast majority of people can agree on. This lowest common denominator is factual observations.

There is considerable debate over the existence of a God entity but there is very little debate over the existence of gravity. Gravity can be observed. Governments should take the existence of gravity into account when making their decisions. Governments should not take the existence of a God entity into account when making their decisions (unless/until the existence of a God entity can be established as a matter of factual observation).

If a pattern of factual observations is indicating the global warming is occurring then governments should take this into account. Governments should always take factual observations into account regardless of whether the decision is military decision or a financial decision or any other decision.

The basic message to the government is this: "Don't ignore factual observations when making decisions."

Science is the belief that nothing is true that cannot be proven to be true.

Science is about patterns in what people observe. One of the most fundamental patterns is that people observe each other to observe the same things. For example, under certain circumstances, I observe the sky to be blue and I also observe other people to observe the sky to be blue.

Science can not, however, establish whether the patterns in what people observe are true in an absolute sense. I don't know if what I observe is "real" o

Belief in an idea larger than yourself and that you can't ever really be sure is true is Noble.

So we should respect these guys - http://www.mufon.com/ [mufon.com] - instead of calling them fruitcakes?

Or perhaps you mean "noble" in the chemical sense and are suggesting they're congenitally unable to form stable relationships? If that's the case, there's going to be a lot of bowing and scraping amongst the Slashdot community in the days ahead...

It's not so much about the government interfering with "Scientific decisions" - which seems absurd, as scientists generally don't make political decisions. It's more about politicians interfering with science itself. Like all this bullshit over banning stem cell research.

It's also about politicians distorting and lying about the reports and findings of scientists. That is just as abhorrent when the politicians are distorting intelligence reports, or financial ones. So no, it's not a double standard. The pol

Agreed. To respond to the GP post: I qualify as "American", and I would write today's date as "2006-12-14" or "20061214" or maybe "2006/12/14", depending on whether I was just writing it out on paper, using the date stamp in a DNS zone file or some other computer representation, or setting up a directory hierarchy for something like daily webserver logfiles.Most US-based computer companies commonly use the YYYY-MM-DD format now, but YMMV.(That's "Your Mileage May Vary", not "YEAR+MONTH+overflow bit"....:-)

So, the text representations of a set of dates in a certain year sort lexicographically?
That was an engineering choice made in the days of hardware constraints.
Teach the British to drive on the correct side of the road, and we'll talk.;)
As in the case of these scientists, people reject that which they don't take time to put into context.

No, good public policy was never the norm, though lack of scientific knowledge hasn't been the only major reason (indeed, isn't even #1, which is "lack of interest in the public good among the governing elite".) But its certainly a limiting factor, nonetheless.

You don't need a recent scientific study from a top-tier university for knowing a _lot_ of things.

That's true. Unfortunately, almost any area of public policy requires knowing lots of things, some of which, for almost any policy question imaginable, are of the type that are non-obvious and for which systematic study is necessary to get right other than by chance.

some things your parents taught you; and some things humans have learned over centuries.

And much of that received, traditional knowledge may be generally correct, but have rather severe limitations that don't become obvious until you try to apply it outside of the context in which that knowledge was generated. You can do that either by systematic study before you implement policy, or by implementing disastrous policy.

Of course, much of that received, traditional "knowledge" is just plain factually incorrect, too.

haha, you're not suggesting feed a cold, starve a fever is inaccurate are you?

It is funny how the parent assumes that everyone came from a sane upbringing where reason was taught rather than irrational hatred or any of the myriad of other attributes that make up this diverse world we live in.

Much of what we know as common sense now wasn't so common 200 years ago though and everything does need to get examined as you said, either through disastrous policy where thousands are injured or dead like Katrina o

You don't need a recent scientific study from a top-tier university for knowing a _lot_ of things. Some things you just know; some things your parents taught you; and some things humans have learned over centuries. It's called "received wisdom."

Six million points for use of the word "codswallop," but I'm left wondering which category 'global climate change, international peace and security, and water resources' fall under.

Declining to omit context and argue at cross purposes seems wise to me.

You don't need a recent scientific study from a top-tier university for knowing a _lot_ of things.

Perhaps you do not, but you almost certainly need a methodology that includes empirical tests and peer review at some point. Received wisdom -- about race, about god/godess/the gods, about how to cure ailments -- must be subjected to the same tests and the best tools we have for achieving some modicum of "truth" about the world. You don't have to argue for an absolute-truth epistemology or for modern science as the end of human progress to conclude that some ways of knowing are better than others, and that all attempts at knowing must be verified and critiqued as best we can.

More importantly, we live in a world where policy directly interacts with issues intimately connected with the sciences -- if you were making policy in 18th century Boston, you're not (except in the most remote senses) making policies that deal with the Internet, or nuclear weapons, or global warming. The spectre of these things makes science far more crucial in public policy than at any other point in human history.

Unless you can prove they ignore the suppression and misrepresentation of findings only in a very selective way, I think you'd have to say rather that they're trying to de-politicize science. They're a watchdog group whose only agenda is full disclosure and absolute rigor. I don't see how that would translate into any kind of political leaning.

(Of course it's common knowledge that the truth has a strong liberal bias.)

They're a watchdog group whose only agenda is full disclosure and absolute rigor.

I see that you don't know much about the UCS. They're a Left-wing advocacy group whose original goal was to shut down nuclear power. Having largely succeeded at that, they then went on to other left-wing causes.

Unless you can prove they ignore the suppression and misrepresentation of findings only in a very selective way

Are you mad? The UCS is an environmentalist group, founded in 1969. It's current president, Kevin Knobloch is a Washington insider Democrat, who served on the staff of two Democrat Congressmen. He's a "No Nukes" activist and pushes the hybrid car/hug a tree agenda. He's got a degree in Journalism for crying out loud, not science. This institute has nothing to do with science and more to do with making sure the giant cash cow of government funding never dries up. Read their own web-site and look up where t

Kevin Knobloch is a Washington insider Democrat, who served on the staff of two Democrat Congressmen. He's a "No Nukes" activist and pushes the hybrid car/hug a tree agenda. He's got a degree in Journalism for crying out loud, not science.

I don't care if he's Jack The Ripper. Is he telling the truth or not? That's the only question relevant to this discussion.

I'm sick of this 'bias' shit. I don't care about bias. I only care about honesty and scientific rigour. I don't care if you're advocating nudism

OK!So they publish a statement saying that the earth is becoming overpopulated. They say it is therefore imperative that abortion be universally available. (Coded, "reproductive decision.")

Saying that populations are exceeding expected future ability of the planet to sustain a minimal lifestyle...that is a relatively politically neutral statement. Just saying "overpopulation" is a bit more political, but only because you aren't stating your assumptions. Saying then that abortion is the solution is overtly p

I can't prove that. But I couldn't find any substantial criticism of a democratic administration. It's a very lengthy list and I could have easily missed something as I did not read every item thoroughly. The items they do list are deplorable if accurate. But I can't believe Bush invented this type of nonsense; he's not smart enough for that. In fact, I've become so cynical that I'm certain democratic administrations supress/distort scientific findings with equal vigor when their politcal constituencies so

Leaving aside whether the UCS practices “politicized science”, or instead merely reacts to others’ politicization of science, they certainly didn't invent politicized science, having been founded in 1969, which certainly is later than birth of the scientific pretense of Marxism-Leninism as practiced by the Soviet state, which itself was hardly, itself, the birth of the politicization of science.Heck, the cloak of modern empirical science was probably grabbed by political factions for their

"How many thousands of "scientists" for untold centuries were more than happy to tell their rulers that, yes of course the earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it?"I don't think any scientist ever actually said that, I believe it was church dogma.Something science found to be incorrect, BTW.

All lorenze proved was that there were to many variables to predict weather.

You want to know what happened to the hurricanes? an increase in wind sheer caused by global climate change.

It seems a relatively new phenomenon these days, where scientist think they have some sort of carte blanche to purpose something, and expect the world to spin around on a dime and provide huge federal grants to modify everyone's behavior. If you ask me it is more than a little disingenious.

Clearly you've never worked at any sort of research institution doing science that was supported by federal grants. If you lack firsthand experience or concrete evidence of this you can cite, I would kindly ask you to s

They should have named this on define hypocrisyI always love it when someone is down they complain about the very thing they were doing when they were on top.

Global Warming is a perfect exampleSeveral studies that I have seen quoted (on both sides) have faked their numbers when their models did not show what they wanted. Some have later been busted on it.Yet people that are not climatologists keep quoting the worthless studies as if they meant something. Now I don't care what side you come down on unless

I'm just curious which "sides" you're talking about. It sounds like you're saying there's some clear line where scientists disagree. My understanding is that disagreement exists on subtler points, but not on whether human activity contributes to global warming. (Unless there's some disagreement about the principle of cause-and-effect I'm unaware of...?)In any case, I don't think any research has itself stated that humanity must or mustn't curtail their emissions of hydrocarbons, only that there are predicta

I'm just curious which "sides" you're talking about. It sounds like you're saying there's some clear line where scientists disagree. My understanding is that disagreement exists on subtler points, but not on whether human activity contributes to global warming. (Unless there's some disagreement about the principle of cause-and-effect I'm unaware of...?)

You state that everyone agrees that human activity contributes to global warming. That's actually exactly where the disagreements are. The point where disa

This is true of all sorts of people, but it is less true of genuine experts (in whatever field).

What we need are people to be honest and say that they really do not know what is causing global warming or disease, etc. We need open research minds that are objective. The global warming campaign is not very objective. The fact is, no one understands earth's climate completely. We may have some understanding of small aspects of the climate but

No, but then again they at least have the intellectual integrity to say that they are CONSERVATIVE.... unlike a certain disingenuous Union which doesn't identify itself as a Left Wing activist organisation.

No, but then again they at least have the intellectual integrity to say that they are CONSERVATIVE.... unlike a certain disingenuous Union which doesn't identify itself as a Left Wing activist organisation.

Repeat after me:Not everone who disagree with right wing nutjobs is a left-winger.

The argument you're making is simply stupid. It boils down to:
"A group if of the political affiliation that another group pins on it, regardless of things like actual evidence or the stated aims of the group."

Scientific-looking "periodic table" -- with no acual periods or relation to chemicals.

Only has events begining in 2001, so they only blame Bush and the Republican congress.

The articles describing each incident are cleverly weasel-worded, to make it sound like a big conspiracy, but if carefully parsed, doesn't seem to hang togther (That is, if read carefully, it doesn't say very much at all about who told whom say or not say what.)

Scientific-looking "periodic table" -- with no acual periods or relation to chemicals.

Nice job on missing the point. The intention wasn't to present the periodic table. The intention was to present it in an interesting graphical format. You could also call it a little mocking of the political elite.

Only has events begining in 2001, so they only blame Bush and the Republican congress.

Yay, since you try to turn this into a political issue, now you set the scene for the political indoctrinated biases to wo